Today's Veterinary Business

OCT 2018

Today’s Veterinary Business provides information and resources designed to help veterinarians and office management improve the financial performance of their practices, allowing them to increase the level of patient care and client service.

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26 Today's Veterinary Business Business
and we see that client comfort
greatly affects patient comfort.
Make your clients happy and their
pets likely will be happy, too.
Capture Natural Light
In general, we want to see sunlight
but not be directly exposed to it.
Light from the south and west can
be harsh and make us uncomfort-
ably hot, even with the A/C blast-
ing. Instead, we want northern and
cool morning eastern light.
Southern light can be easily
controlled using exterior over-
hangs. With western light, ag-
gressive and costly architectural
approaches are necessary, so we
tend to limit the glass on that side
of a hospital.
Skylights and light tubes are
great for illuminating interior
spaces. Light tubes are simi-
lar to skylights in that they are
roof-mounted, but they are less
expensive, easier to waterproof
and do better at distributing light
across a wide area. The light is
reflected rather than direct, so the
interior stays cooler.
Borrowed light, on the other
hand, is the use of interior windows
to carry light into interior rooms.
We all know how exam rooms can
feel small and tight, but improve-
ments such as transoms over doors,
high and wide clerestory windows,
and full-height frosted glass will
transform a claustrophobic room
into a welcoming space.
Depending on a building's
shape, a clerestory window can
be introduced to an interior room
by raising the ceiling and roof.
This approach works best in larger
spaces like treatment rooms. Since
most clinical spaces surround the
treatment area, they can all benefit
from borrowed light.
When to Use Artificial Light
The sun doesn't always shine,
of course, so light fixtures are
necessary. Even here, much can
be done to maintain a healthful
environment. The first step is to
select the right light source. These
days, there is little reason to use
anything other than LEDs. They
are energy efficient at about 100
lumens per watt, they are easily
and cheaply dimmable, and they
do not contain toxic mercury like
fluorescent lamps do.
Another advantage of LEDs is the
wide range of color temperatures.
The color a light renders is expressed
in degrees Kelvin. Lower numbers
are more warm and higher numbers
are cool. A 2500K lamp is considered
warm white, 3500K is cool white and
4500K is close to daylight. Anything
above that will look unnaturally blue.
The standard choice in my firm
is 4000K lamps. That way the light-
tube diffusers and LED fixtures ap-
pear to have the same color. 4000K
also gives a good color rendition
index (CRI). Full daylight has a CRI
of 100. A lamp with CRI 85 or above
is very good and is important in
clinical spaces to support accurate
visualization and diagnosis.
An added benefit of high CRI
light sources is that your interior de-
sign colors will render correctly, which
leads us to light's architectural uses.
Count the Advantages
Here are a few key things to realize:
• Higher light levels will make
a room appear bigger.
• A low ceiling can be visually
overcome by washing the
surface with uplight, mean-
ing a light source set in an
upward direction.
• Tall spaces will retain their im-
pact at night when brightly
illuminated. If the ceiling has
a high reflectance, the entire
space enjoys ambient light.
• Conversely, if you wish to
draw attention away from the
ceiling, downlights will accent
lower spaces and features.
• Washing a wall with light
from purpose-made fixtures
will highlight logo walls and
can add visual interest to oth-
erwise unremarkable spaces.
• Long hallways can appear
less so by illuminating a side
wall. A shadowed, or less
bright, end wall will appear
to advance.
Business
CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM
Do you have any questions for Paul Gladysz about designing or building a veterinary
hospital? What other topics would you like covered in Constructive Criticism? Email your
ideas to kniedziela@navc.com.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?
Frequency-tuned LED fixtures mimic daylight in interior spaces.
North-facing windows provide ample diffuse ambient light and minimal heat gain at a
Phoenix veterinary practice.